BEFORE: Another film with a geeky/awkward teen coming of age - that's three of those in a row. This one is set in 1987, not the 1960's - music should still be good, though. I think I've been watching a bunch of films that were released in 2009 lately - mostly because those are the newest films running on the premium cable channels. So I've managed to watch 50 of the top 250 films of 2009, I think that's pretty respectable. By contrast, I've only seen 5 or 6 films so far that were released in 2010. And I'm linking tonight from "Taking Woodstock"'s Liev Schreiber, who was also in "X-Men Origins: Wolverine" with Ryan Reynolds (last seen in "The In-Laws"), who plays an amusement park maintenance techie here.
THE PLOT: A comedy set in the summer of 1987 and centered around a recent college grad who takes a job at a local amusement park.
AFTER: Another little slice-of-life film, and again I'm not sure if I should take this as a comedy or a drama, it's sort of right down the middle. But trying to please everyone sometimes means that you end up pleasing no one.
The film does manage to convey the awkwardness of growing up, working one's first job and having the first few dating encounters, but I'm at a loss to explain why it's set in 1987 - other than a few songs like "Rock Me Amadeus", there's nothing about the plot that demands it be set in that time period.
There's a character here who is on summer break from NYU - and in 1987, I was in the same situation, and I went back to Massachusetts and worked another summer in the stockroom of a retail store. The following summer, I went back to MA but worked in a movie theater, which felt a little closer to my intended career path. I manned the concession stand with a ragtag bunch of crazy teens, sort of similar to the group depicted in this film. But since I was over 18, I was one of the few people who could work the late shows on Friday and Saturday. Benefits that summer included all the popcorn and lemonade I wanted, and free movies - but I didn't watch many movies, because I worked so many hours there, on my time off I just wanted to be somewhere else.
The best part of this film for me was getting a behind-the-scenes look at the tricks behind the carnival games.
Also starring Jesse Eisenberg (last seen in "The Village"), Kristen Stewart, Martin Starr (last seen in "Stealing Harvard"), Kristen Wiig (last seen in "Date Night"), Bill Hader, Wendie Malick (last seen in "Alvin & The Chipmunks: The Squeakquel"). Cameo from Michael Zegen, who's now on the FX show "Rescue Me" and used to appear on the Letterman show as "Dwight, the Troubled Teen".
RATING: 5 out of 10 stuffed animals.
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